


The Puppeteer

by Crollalanza



Category: Shaderunners (Webcomic)
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 03:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8649106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: There's a pedlar on the corner a block away from where Pamina lives, and she passes him every day when she ventures outside to meet Ezra. Pamina will nod a hello to him, then carry on her journey.  But one day, one damp, drizzly afternoon, he calls out to her and she stops because he possesses something that fascinates her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linkeepsitreal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linkeepsitreal/gifts).



> This story is for the amazing Lin, who is the writer and co-creator of Shaderunners, because it is her birthday! 
> 
> I took this information from the Shaderunners website and basically ran with it.  
>  
> 
> 'The first puppet she ever made herself was named Ara. She was made of wood and rags and she used her to tell the story of the First Lander moon goddess. She doesn’t have it anymore, though.'

She is one person in the city. A nobody. Less than that, because Pamina is a child, and as such she’s unseen. If she’d belonged to one of the high-ups, if the name of Fortenbright had carried a rank, then maybe she could have had a voice, one she’d have used to tell her tale. One with which she could have exerted some control. But here in the tired tenement building, as the midday sun struggles to free itself from the clouds, she feels nothing but the shackles of her station.

Chores complete, she sticks her head out of her bedroom window and breathes in the scent of the city. Up here, if she lifts her nose high enough she catches a whiff of something fresh, approaching rain perhaps, or the sea air before it’s had a chance to mingle with the stale fish from the docks.

From her window, the people look different, hunched and indistinct. If she holds her thumb up to her eye, she can smudge them from view, so she plays at that for a while, wondering if her actions will have an effect, causing them to change direction.

Hearing the staccato chime of the Ironwell clock, she stops thinking about the people below, and pulls on her coat to become one of them.

It is a cold day, not icy, but there’s a cutting wind, slicing chill into her. Pamina slams the door hard and trudges down the steps, wishing she had a warmer coat, wishing the sun was shining, or the chestnut seller will give her a bag for free so she can warm her hands.  Most of all, she wishes for Ezra to be on time for once, so she has longer to escape with him into his world of words and not stay in the drear.

In Ironwell, all she sees is the gloom of a dragging river, heavy and sluggish with the swell of too much water and precious few diverting streams.  And she’s in the undertow, unable to drift to the top, always paddling against the current merely to stay exactly where she is.

She’s unclear when she first noticed the pedlar, just that one day she did and then after that she couldn’t look away.

He’s non-descript, a knitted cap keeping his straggling hair in place, a chequered shirt and baggy patched trousers. He’s always clean, though, despite the disarray, and she notices the patches in his clothes are immaculately stitched.

He stands on the corner of the street a block away. Pamina creeps past him most days, the collar of her thin coat turned up as proof against the weather whipping around her.  The other kids trot or skip, but Pamina’s never felt the necessary lightness in her heart and feet to be able to do either.  Besides her feet hurt from having to curl her toes to keep her shoes on, so she trundles along the pavement, her eyes focused on the way ahead rather than the distraction of side-streets.

It was a fortnight before she acknowledged him properly, but she started to slow her pace on approach, fascinated by his hands - or more pertinently their contents. And one day she did more than hurriedly glance, giving him a quick nod and receiving a sliver of a grin in return.

And when he smiles, she notices a gap in his teeth at the side. Perhaps aware of that, he never smiles broadly. Or perhaps, like her, he doesn’t feel such a show of a smile gages someone’s happiness.

“Hey, Missy,” he rasps out to her on that particular day when she’s longing, longing, longing to be inside and warm and curled up with a story.

“I don’t have any money,” she mutters back, bowing her head in apology.

“But you like, eh?” he replies, and grins again.

He splays out his hands, and she sees the knuckles poking through – the skin is thin and stretched, and there are cuts – new and old – small nicks in his fingertips.  She’s always had an eye for detail – it comes from observing and not chatting, people tell her – but it’s what’s attached to his hands that fascinate her.

“You like my people,” he qualifies, and flicks one finger in the air.

The pedlar is a puppeteer. In his hands he controls his figures – small, made of wood and rags and wool for the hair – strings attached to his fingers on one hand, but in the other he carries a wooden frame, twitching it from side to side to make the puppet walk.

 “They’re different,” she says.

“They are.”

“Why?”

“This one is a dog and this one is a –”

“No, no, I can see that,” she says and steps closer, feeling bold. “But you hold them differently. The lady is more ... uh ... _complicated.”_ She bites her lip, hoping she’s got the word right. “More strings.”

“Because the story is about the lady,” he says, and dips his fingers down, making her bow. “Milady’s on stage all the time. The dog is a minor part.”

She nods again, not quite understanding, but when he hangs the dog on a stand and plucks up a mouse made out of scraps of fur, she realises he needs to change his characters.

“What stage?”

He opens up his arms – Milady’s arms widen, and the mouse crashes into the crumbling brick wall. “Here. All the world’s a stage, Missy.”

The way he says it reminds her of her Ezra when he’s reading something to her from a book. Something he deems important to share because his brows crease and his voice takes on a different timbre – rich and warm – not his usual murmur.

The pedlar holds out the mouse. “Want to try?”

His jacket smells of tobacco, and his breath of something she’s only able to identify years later as whisky soured from the night before.  But she’s not repelled because his eyes are warm, and the puppets in his hands are clean – immaculate. Taking the mouse, she twists the frame to make it walk. But she twists too much and the strings tangle. As they unwind, she thinks about mice, and how the ones at home scurry across the pantry floor, causing the girls to scream. Pamina doesn’t scream – she doesn’t see the point because the mice are far more scared of her and they only want a crumb or two.

Her second go, and the puppet mouse scuds across the ground, intent on getting away, and when Milady approaches, it stops, darts to the side and hides behind the pedlar’s foot.

 “The mouse is supposed to be her friend. They need to talk,” he chides her, but then he makes Milady flop on the ground.

“But mice don’t like people. We kill them.”

He laughs. “Very true, Missy. So Milady needs to earn Master Mouse’s trust, eh?”

Trust. Yes, she guesses so. But even then, who knew what Milady had behind her back?  Pamina keeps the puppet still, vowing to keep him there until hunger wins the day.

It’s a voice calling her name that jerks her out of the reverie. She looks up, sending the mouse into the open, and turns sideways.

“Pammy!”

“Ah...”

“He’s a friend?” the pedlar asks, and reaches across to take the puppet.

“Yes,” she says, not adding Ezra is her only friend.

“I’ve not seen you with anyone before. The others, they all link arms and laugh, but you’re more ... uh ... solitary, eh?” the pedlar continues, and he smiles again – softly – his tone more than a little wistful. “It’s good to have someone.”

Ezra comes to a halt, almost tripping over his lace as he stops in front of her. “You’re here!” he says, half accusatory. “I was at the library.”

“Um ... yeah ... sorry ...” She waves at the pedlar. “Look, Ezra, puppets. They’re _fun_.”

“Hmm.” He crouches down, his feet flat to the ground. “Marionettes, aren’t they?”

“Ah, you’re a bright one,” the pedlar replies.

“I’ve read about them,” Ezra says, and completely unnecessarily, he flicks his hair off his forehead. “Did _you_ make them?”

The pedlar raises his eyebrows and holds out his hands. She sees again the cuts, and nudges Ezra because although she’s sure he hadn’t meant to be rude, he has a way of dismissing anything that hasn’t come out of a book.

“Where did you learn?” Pamina asks quickly before he takes offence.

He smiles wryly, knowing the reason she’s interjected and tilts his face a little away from Ezra so he’s only looking at her. “I taught myself.”

“Why?”

Close up, his eyes pierce her. “I wanted to tell stories, Missy, but I’m not one for the stage, so I taught myself and now I have the actors I need for my tales.”

“They’re very good. So ... intricate,” Ezra murmurs, stretching towards Milady, but he hesitates and withdraws his hand, fearful of causing more affront.

But the pedlar is conciliatory, and walks Milady across the pavement to him, letting her delicate feather boa rest on his knee.  “You like stories, huh? You read them in books?”

“I do.” Ezra’s eyes are fervent, his tone warmer, less tight.

“But it’s Missy here who has the soul of a storyteller ... just maybe not the words.”  He huffs out a sigh, then coughs – hacking and rasping - causing Milady to flinch and jump into the air as he muffles his mouth into his jacket sleeve.

“Can I get you some water, sir?” Ezra asks, concerned.

He waves him away, waves both of them away and starts to pack up his puppets, making noises about coming back when the weather’s warmer.

It’s as he’s closing his case, shabby and dog-eared at the corners, that he turns back to them, seemingly unsurprised they’re still there and not sheltering from the drizzling rain.

“You have words,” he says to Ezra. “Share them with her.”

 

At his house, Ezra sits on the sofa, balances his library book on his crooked knees and reads aloud.

“Many years ago, when First Land was new, the goddess of the moon cast her eyes down and saw the emptiness of the world below,” he begins.

Usually Pamina listens curled up with a cushion taking in the beauty of the story, but today she sits cross-legged on the floor, a small block of wood in her hand and a knife in the other.

“Her fingers span a ladder made from shimmering moonbeams.” 

There’s a twist of rags by her side, remnants of old clothes, and wool from a sweater of Ezra’s that’s long past being darned.

“And as she alighted on the earth, she danced, spreading silver and mystery.”

 _I’ll call her Ara,_ Pamina thinks, and smiles to herself. _And she will tell my tales._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. :D


End file.
